Right, so I'm pretty much stuck, hence the modder's block. I've been deprecating and upgrading lots of weapons in my DSTech mod and doing lots of spriting. But I'm not feeling inspired, most of my "projects" are on hold, and I can't seem to come up with new designs of anything that agree with me at all, or even feel motivated enough to figure out what to do next.

How do you guys judge what content is needed, redundant, or needs to be changed? How does the work of other modders influence your mod and modding? When you first started modding for CC, what were your goals in making your mod?

Please answer, it'll give me a better bearing of where I really should be going.

I have my own inspiration problems, but, for you, it sounds like you're burnt out. I'd take a break from CC for a while.

Either do what MLC said, or do some quick things that will get you results. Make a mod that is entirely silly (how AHS happened), Or just focus on executing a simple function in an effective, polished way. Play some random indie shmups that you've never heard of, a lighthearted RPG or really anything that inspires you. Draw stuff whilst listening to music, go for a run and think about what could be fun while you do it. For modding (and game design and all entertainment media really) the core question you should aim to answer is "what would be fun for me?", but you need to be in a state where you can enjoy yourself for that to happen.

You can't aim to be inspired, it will happen when you need it to. When you're burnt out, do things that would get you out of a slump about other things, and it'll get you into a more creative state of mind.

now, after you've done that:
I judge what content is needed or redundant by comparing the lot of it and evaluating which things could be effectively averaged out. If there are two guns that function practically identically, one should be removed (preferably the one that less work went into, but not always) and the other should be extended to also fill the niche you thought the other one did.
Deciding what content needs to be changed is harder. You have to leave it alone for a while, work on something else or actually play the game a bit rather than just testing stuff and then come back to it. It's like flipping your art, or closing it and coming back in an hour, or in the morning. It gives you a fresh outlook, and rather than seeing that your dude is leaning wwwwwwwwwwwwwway to far back, you see that the gun you were testing over and over and thought you were balancing is horribly unbalanced, rapes terrain, is too weak, or is just feels un-fun (if it's the last one, you should likely remove it). If it's just missing that special something, sometimes you can insert that. Most of the time though, it's missing that special something because you tried to develop an uninspired idea.

I see other mods, and modders as a source of competition, as well as inspiration. Things like crobotech, darkstorm, and heck, even parts of AAL. Everything. I try to see it as something I should try to best, even if that goal is unrealistic. I pull inspiration. Crobotech's LR rape cannon might be overpowered, but it is a fun weapon that follows a simple concept but has pretty flashing and feels powerful, like it should. From that, i get inspired to polish my stuff more. Things like darkstorm's laser weapons are inspiring in that they solve a conventional problem of making a good assault style weapon (doing line of sight damage to the enemy without raping them and without being too weak) in a novel way (with a flashy line of pixels and instant response). AAL makes me want to make a big mech, the only thing stopping me is how gimped they are in CC.
The tenacity of modders is something to take inspiration from as well. Some modders are lazy, dont finish stuff, release buggy stuff, or persue useless designs (me). However, regardless of the initial product, modders generally cater to what the community things the mod needs, and they do it as quickly as possible. Heck, they might do it in ways that make more bugs, and that are botchy, or that overpopulate the buy menu (me again), but they do it, and it isn't for any more than like 10 people's mild respect, and something fun to play at the end of the day.

One thing I want to do is make a mod that is polished, concise, and fun. I want it to look good and play good. I want people to want to play my mod. That's what I aim for when I'm making stuff. Every time I've released something, It's missed some of that, but I'll get there, and so should you.
[/wall of text faggotry]

holy hell that preview is scary. lets get some readability.
nope, still horrible. oh well, good luck wading though it.

tl;dr: Geti is sentimental about CC sometimes, you should get out of the house, listen to some tunes, and then come back with a kickass idea and code it in a night.

I congratulate you for that post, and every other modder should do so too. You've managed to put in words exactly what modding (and any other form of creating stuff) is like. Kudos. (Whatever kudos are, I never managed to understant that word, really.)



Now, as to your block, DS, I think Geti has already given you better advice than I ever could. I can only add that, sometimes, you should just put your mind to doing something, and work furiously on it. After some time, inspiration will come, and you'll not even notice it, because it will seem only natural to start making something as soon as the idea comes up.

If that doesn't work, then, well, take a break, as Geti said. From my experience, it works even better if you do something completely unrelated to your mod. Go watch a movie, listen to some music, run around the block, whatever. It might take anything between a few minutes to a few days, but eventually you'll think of something and say "Hey, that's a good idea!", and then inspiration will have come. Work over that idea, even if it's not directly related to what you were doing before. One idea will lead to another, and soon you'll have more good ideas than time for making mods out of them.



And now, as to how I evaluate mods. I usually say the mod needs a way of working in any of the situations presented by CC: landing from the sky, attacking other players, defending a bunker and mining for gold. Anything extra is usually good, but if it has two actors/items that do the exact same function, then one of them (usually the less effective or fun) should either be scrapped or receive some kind of feature to differenciate it from the other one. Still, I always thought that awesomeness is the best way to judge if something should be changed or not. Does it feel awesome by itself, or at least make it possible to make epic/cool actions in the game? If not, then maybe it should be rethinked.

And, finally, my goals. When I first found CC, I was in a pretty depressing state. I had put my mind into learning some kind of programming, but, like you, was suffering from a block. Then I started making mods, and it gave me a jolt of inspiration: there was something I could do, and kind of well, at least. My objective then was to see where it could lead me, what unusual and unexpected things I could mod, just for the fun of it.
As I grew used to CC's language and saw the great faction mods, though, my goal changed. I wanted to do something as good as that, a balanced and complete mod, not just a pack of random little ideas. I wanted to do something like DarkStorm, Kloveska, Crobotech, Unitec, Pelian Army, AAL, and, yes, DSTech. And that has been my objective until now, and it shall continue so until I reach my goal. That is what I am working into.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this.

You want to know who I make DarkStorm for? Me. Even in listening to comments and criticism, I only really listen when it's something I think is cool. I'm making the thing I want to see in CC: ultra-customizable tacticool units and weapons. If others enjoy it too, well, that's practically an accident.

But see, that's the thing: it's alright to create something for yourself. If you put a lot of interest and passion into it (which goes beyond just "effort," since it requires you to really care about the thing at hand), then you'll wind up with a quality mod, and people WILL want to play it, regardless of how selfish you may be. Heck, if we want to get all Objectivist, selfishness is a good thing when it comes to creating something new, for that exact reason.

So, just make whatever you feel is cool, and not one thing more.

Yeah, what Darlos and Geti said. Make cool things for yourself. Then, when you run out of ideas, think of another cool thing. Or maybe experiment, like zalo. For the inspiration themselves, what currently registers as 'cool'?

Ah, modder's block. Pretty much, just make something silly like they said. If you notice, the mods I release are in a kind of pattern: serious, silly, serious, silly. And then I go back and tweak all of them. If you lack any ideas, take a few days and play a few other games to inspire you.

and if all else fails, attempt to code and sprite shroom men, that explode when they hit the ground. that helped me(though i dont know why...) Soo yeah, just do something crazy, like everyone else said, that you like, and listen to music, watch a good movie you enjoy, play some kickass games, Im still on a block for nsf, which i started god knows how long ago. Also i wish you good luck!

Ill Provide some ideas, which may or my not work.
Ideas:
1. Penguins
2. Frogs
3. Oh my im saying to much wildlife.
4. FireBall Gun
5. Lighting Gun
6. Some Huge Cannon Ball
8. I SKipped 7
9. a tank
10. A Hover Tank
11. A Alien
12. Something awesome.

I'm almost done making this, so no one take my idea.

This thread brings manly tears to my eyes.

MASTER BALL GO.

Numgun, are you just dropping in for a visit, or are you actually back?

NUMGUN OMG, HES BACK
*Hails him*

Grif better not screw tis up again.

I wish I could supply a horribly insightful and detailed wall of text about how to break through modder's block and unlock your mind... But I can't.
My suggestion is to go out and play other games for a while, go watch some movies, read some books or take a walk. Generally average stuff, yet that seems to inspire me greatly. I've been playing Borderlands and I went and watched Avatar and my mind was full of possibilities.

Or maybe it's time to take a break from DSTech, which afaic is brilliant, and work with new principles, theories, color schemes or anything to create something that's different to the things you've been making, and making well, for I have no idea how long.

*Shoots dxp*
Ahem.
Now then.

DS, I know exactly what you're going through. What I do when this happens is just take a little break or work on a little tiny project for fun. Like, something that you think is cool and you don't care how it turns out. Just a little fun something for yourself.